The Bay Area’s job market in March powered to its strongest monthly gains so far in 2019 — and the best month since June — with a hiring surge led by Santa Clara County and the East Bay, state labor experts reported Friday.
So far this year, the Bay Area has gained 31,300 jobs, which means the nine-county region has accounted for a head-spinning 61 percent of the 51,300 positions added statewide in the first three months of 2019.
Santa Clara County added 5,100 jobs during March, while the East Bay gained 3,400 jobs and the San Francisco-San Mateo region added 2,200 positions, a new report by the state’s Employment Development Department showed. All the numbers were adjusted to account for seasonal variations.
Overall, the Bay Area gained 11,800 jobs in March, the best one-month performance during 2019 and the most jobs added by employers in the nine-county region since June 2018, when the area added 12,500 jobs, this news organization’s analysis of the EDD figures determined.
“The job surge in the Bay Area is continuing,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “I’m surprised that the surge has strengthened in recent months.”
California added 24,500 nonfarm payroll jobs last month, the EDD reported. The statewide unemployment rate worsened to 4.3 percent, slightly higher than the 4.2 percent rate in February. The payroll numbers and the unemployment rate sometimes move in opposite directions because they are derived from different government surveys.
“The Bay Area is punching well above its weight class,” said Robert Kleinhenz, an economist and executive director of research with Beacon Economics. “Over the last several months, the San Francisco metro area and Santa Clara County have had particularly strong job gains.”
The Bay Area’s dominance over the first quarter of 2019 extends a trend that has been under way for at least a full year, an analysis of the EDD report shows.
Over the 12 months that ended in March, California added 238,500 jobs while the Bay Area gained 91,000 positions, leaving the nine-county area with 38.2 percent of the employment gains in the state in that one-year period.
Total payroll employment grew by 2.3 percent in the Bay Area, 3.8 percent in the San Francisco-San Mateo area, 2.5 percent in Santa Clara County and 1.5 percent in the East Bay over the most recent 12 months on record. Employment totals grew by 1.7 percent in the United States. All of these areas outpaced California’s job growth of just 1.4 percent during the one-year period.
“The parts of California that are tied to tech seem to be doing pretty well,” said Mark Vitner, a senior economist with San Francisco-based Wells Fargo Bank.
Case in point: Technology employment in the Bay Area rocketed 5.4 percent higher during the 12 months that ended in March, this newspaper’s analysis of the EDD figures showed.
Bay Area tech jobs are growing more than twice as fast as overall employment growth in the nine-county region and three times the pace of job growth in California and the United States.
Much of this is being driven by hiring booms at Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Adobe and LinkedIn. Plus, recent initial public offerings by Uber, Lyft and Zoom could create foundations for fresh hiring efforts at those companies.
“The parts that are more tied to international trade are not doing as well,” Kleinhenz said. Southern California areas that have sputtered lately include Los Angeles County and Orange County, which boast close economic ties to the seaports in Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The employment boom in the region appears likely to persist throughout the year, especially since it’s off to such a strong start in 2019, Levy said.
“Tech companies want the employment increase to continue; they are still looking for people to hire,” Levy said. “If tech companies can find people to hire, the employment increases will go on.”
The strong economy in the Bay Area, coupled with word that tech companies are eager to hire, have enticed people to relocate to this region, even in the face of brutal commutes and forbidding housing prices, Kleinhenz said.
“Santa Clara County and San Francisco are acting as magnets to draw people into the Bay Area and into the local labor force,” Kleinhenz said. “The wage gains in those areas are acting as magnets to attract workers.”